A MOTHER charged with causing the death of her own son by careless driving told a court how everyone was happy in the car listening to music when the steering started juddering.

Karen Evans, 36, said it was getting harder and harder to keep hold of the steering wheel and with a sliproad coming up on her left she made a last-minute decision to turn down it to safety.

“But it was just so hard to turn,” she said in a police interview read to the jury at Mold Crown Court today (Tuesday, March 1).

“I remember going up in the air. The next thing I remember is waking up,” she said.

Evans, of The Nook, Mancot, denies a charge of causing death by careless driving.

The court has heard how her son Jordan, 11, who was autistic, died in the crash as he was being taken to school at St Richard Gwyn Catholic High in Flint by his mum. His two sisters were also in the car.

The prosecution claims it was human error that caused the crash, but the defence maintains Evans was faced with a mechanical emergency and tried to get off the A55 dual-carriageway at Northop Hall on the morning of April 29 last year.

Interviewed Evans said that Jordan had deliberately missed the bus to school so she had decided to take him.

She was driving her Vauxhall Corsa, her daughter Levi, 18, was in the front passenger seat and Jordan was in the back with his sister Lilly May, three.

While there had been some bickering, Jordan had calmed down and they were listening to music as they drove along, she said.

“Jordan was singing to the music,” Evans said. “Everyone was just happy.”

Evans came up behind a vehicle and pulled out to overtake, she explained, when there was a movement ‘like one big swerve’.

It originally felt like ‘a blow-out’ with the steering wheel constantly juddering, the court heard.

Jordan started panicking and was asking what was going on, and Evans told him: “It’s OK, I am just going to get the car off the road.”

Evans said it was getting harder to keep hold of the steering wheel and she made a split-second decision to turn off at the sliproad, but the car clipped the side.

Evans denied she was speeding or driving erratically before the crash. When questioned, she refuted an estimate of her speed at 80mph and said she was travelling at 65-70mph when the car started to judder.

It veered to the right and then to the left, Evans said.

“The steering wheel was just shaking in my hand,” she said. “I was trying to control it but it was just not happening.”

The jury heard Jordan died of a head injury. His mum broke her back in two places and fractured six ribs. She also sustained a broken collarbone and a punctured lung, and received stitches to a head wound.

Lilly May had a broken left leg, a broken vertebrae in her back and a punctured lung, and Levi had stitches to her hand, head and feet.

Evans denied she had suddenly decided to drive down the sliproad because she realised she had no fuel. She had not seen the fuel light on, she said.

She added: “I went across the road to get off the carriageway to safety. I didn’t realise it was going to kill my son.”